Life's A Bitch
by VerticalRunning
Summary: AU set in High School.


Shane pulled her leather jacket closer to herself, feeling the icy morning air more than usual. It was times like this that she hated not having a driveway.

She picked up the pace a little and pulled her car keys out, shoving them into the driver's side door. As soon as it was unlocked she jumped in and turned over the engine, immediately turning the heater on, holding her hands as close as possible.

When she deemed the car warm enough and could feel the tips of her fingers she placed her seat belt on and pulled out onto the quiet road, bopping along to whatever generic song was playing on the radio. It was mostly a silence filler on her way to pick up Alice. As soon as her best friend was in the car Shane could guarantee that a decent song would be playing.

Shane must have gotten slightly lost in her thoughts or just switched to auto pilot because before she knew It she was in front of Alice's place.  
She pulled her phone out and typed in Alice's number from memory, after a few short minutes a groggy voice answered.

"Jesus Christ Al, have you even gotten out of bed yet? Have you showered?" Shane wasn't angry, despite what her tone might entail. This was her usual morning routine and she wouldn't change it for the world.

"Whaaaat? I'm totally up and showered and yeah….." the sentence was left hanging and there was a pause, indicating that Alice was well on her way to falling asleep.

"ALICE!" it was a half-hearted shout, in fact Shane was suppressing a chuckle.

"I'm up". There was the sound of movement on the other side of the line and then the dial tone.  
Shane chuckled lightly to herself, this had been their routine ever since she had passed her test and it didn't look to be changing anytime soon, at least not if Alice kept failing hers.

She shook her head amused and unlocked the passenger side door for Alice to get in. Five minutes later Alice was perched in passenger seat, already scrolling through the iPod trying to decide on a song or album.

Before Shane knew it she was driving along to the docile tunes of Mumford & Sons.

"The Planet or Starbucks?" Alice seemed to contemplate it for all of a minute.

"Starbucks. Ever since Marina up and left the coffee at The Planet has started to taste like poopy shit".

Shane did agree with that and took the next left in order to swing them round to the nearest Starbucks.

"Also, ya know….Dana lives in this direction and I may have promised her a ride today". She avoided eye contact with Shane.

"A ride to school or a ride with you later?" the tone didn't go unnoticed by Alice and so she played along.

"What makes you think I didn't promise her both?" she raised her eyebrow questioningly; Shane just ignored her though, taking a few turns in order to get to Dana's.

"As long as you guys don't end up on my couch again then it's all good".

* * *

"Uhh can I get two triple caramel Frappuccino's, one espresso shot and…Dana?"

"Oh uhhh…one of the fruit smoothie…icy kinda drinks". She smiled awkwardly and then turned back to Alice.

Shane just looked at the barista and repeated what Dana said. The barista looked amused and put in a special order, then began to flirt with Shane outrageously.

Something which Shane appreciated and thought was adorable but still knocked back every advance the cute brunette made, something that didn't go unnoticed by Alice, hell even Dana noticed it.

Shortly after their drinks were ready, Shane handed Alice and Dana theirs, downed her espresso shot and then grabbed her drink. The one cup that had a phone number scrawled across it and a message of 'call me for a good time.'

As soon as they were back in the car Alice stared Shane down, something that made the short haired girl feel uncomfortable.

After a few moments Shane could also feel a pair of eyes burning into the back of her head, Dana's to be more precise.

"Hey uh…..Shane…. What was that about?" It was obvious that Alice was not gonna let this go.

"What was what about?" Shane just decided to play it cool though. She wanted to see if her best friend was actually on the right track.

"Complete hottie throws herself at you and…and you do nothing. You barely bat an eyelid of even flirt back with her. I mean…." She took a moment to compose herself.

"Who the fuck are you and what have you done with my player best friend" When Alice got no reply she continued on.

"Hey! Pod person, I'm talking to you". The brunette lightly kicked the tomboy's knee.

"I just….I don't know, I'm kind of getting involved with someone and we're…..well I'm trying not to see other people…" there it was, right out in the open.

"What do you mean "I'm"….why isn't it a "we're"." Of course out of all the things that Shane just said, that would be the one Dana picked up on.

"It's complicated…." Shane left the sentence hanging, pulled into a parking space and jumped out of the car.

"Come on, I think we have time for a smoke".

She walked away from the car, slow enough for them to follow but quick enough so that they couldn't question her.

She pulled out her pack of cigarettes and lit one up, taking a long drag to calm her nerves a little.

As soon as Alice was in range Shane threw her cigarettes to her and walked through the front doors, only turning back to tell Alice to put them back in her locker when she was done.

* * *

Sure enough Alice had placed the cigarettes back in Shane's locker, something that Shane was very grateful for.

She grabbed one out of the pack and placed it in her pocket making her way outside to blaze it up before going to grab some lunch.

It was also time to put her plan into action. She grabbed her cell and began tapping at the screen furiously. The sooner this was done the better.

Soon after hitting send she received the reply she expected. With that being done it was time to text Alice, all she needed was an excuse for getting detention. Something that wouldn't be hard to come up with, the amount of rules that Shane broke was impressive, on the odd occasion she was bound to get caught.

When she had a solid enough reason she text Alice and made her way to the cafeteria, there was still half hour left for lunch, she might as well find something edible.

The end of the day came round fairly quick and Shane had discussed the 'detention' with Alice. Telling her that she would make up not being able to give her a ride home tomorrow and arranging to do something later that evening, if she wasn't too busy fucking Dana.

She had then bid her best friends farewell before slinking off towards detention. It wasn't until after her friends had disappeared completely that Shane doubled back and headed to a certain teacher's office.

One that did not supervise detention.


End file.
